It was a looooong winter

Tomorrow marks the first day of Spring. So long, Winter. We were cooped up most of the time, due to the wet and cold weather and trying to avoid any germs for Ava. I now fully understand why there are so many holidays during the winter months. I imagine these holidays were created by women with small children. In addition to making the most of each holiday, Sophia made use of her time inside:

Painting and other art projects

Cozying up under just-from-the-dryer laundry piles

Taking long baths in the middle of the day

Reading to herself

Decorating random empty cardboard rolls and boxes

Baking

And on that rare day, when sunshine peeked through she got all bundled up and ran her sillies out

Happy St.Patrick's Day

Updated to include dinner. Notice anything missing from the dinner? I forgot to add the potatoes to the pot! What kind of Irish forgets the potatoes?? Duh. I decied to try to bake Irish Soda Bread. Not sure what it is supposed to taste like, but mine actually turned out pretty good. Maybe practice is helping my baking. We also made shamrock cookies. Sophia probably ate more frosting in the process of decorating than actually ended up on the cookies.

Father Daughter Dinner Dance II

Just got a phone call from the dinner dance and Sophia is again the center of attention on the dance floor, so I've been told. Can't wait to see the action shots. But until then, here's the send off.

Santa's in town

Sophia went with her Daddy to pick up his shirt from the dry cleaners. While in there, they saw Santa's suit coming out of the washer. One can only assume Santa decided to take a vacation here. We discussed other options, but decided this is the only plausible reason that Santa's suit was at the cleaners. Rick told Sophia she better be extra nice because Santa surely knows who is naughty or nice if he's in their town. Sophia asked me if we could track Santa on the computer to see where he was exactly (we were following Santa on Christmas Eve through the NORAD website). Thank goodness they aren't tracking where Santa vacations. Just the other day I had told Sophia Santa was in the North Pole overseeing the toy construction. Boy was I wrong.

Fat Tuesday

Sophia is at that fun age where life is really a party, so I decided to put on a Mardi Gras theme dinner. And you know what, I had fun too! We baked a King Cake and cornbread muffins. We decorated the table. I finally found a reason to use the random alligator head that Rick has for whatever reason.

Ava is missing from the photos because we hadn't found her in the cake yet. Just kidding. The cake is flat because I can't bake. I had good intentions, but of course deviated from the recipe and ended up with this. It tasted OK, but we're not really sure what a traditional king cake should taste like, so there you have it. Anyway, the point of it was really to give Sophia a chance to decorate the cake--mission accomplished. I made a shrimp etouffee over rice, and that turned out yummy. And the cornbread muffins were less than stellar, for the same reason as the cake. However, I made cornbread stuffing last night from the leftover muffins and that made up for the bland muffins the night before. Of course I didn't take notes on how I made dinner last night or the night before, so I won't be updating the recipe section.

Ava's milestones

The new formula sure did turn Ava into a new baby. She is way more content when she sleeps now, and she's actually sleeping where she should be--in her bassinet. For the most part. I've gotten used to sleeping with her, so I'm guilty of letting her sleep in our bed after her early morning bottle still.

I've tried to capture her doing some cool stuff. This is harder now, her being the younger sister.

Smiling

Tummy time, holding her upper body and head up, supported by her arms.

Not quite Shirley Temple

Sophia had her first dance class. I signed her up at the studio where I used to dance when I was a little girl. I played up the class for about a week, and she was really excited to go. Until the day of the class. She woke up from her nap in a pretty foul mood. She didn't want to go to dance. She didn't want to get dressed in her new leotard. After a lot of coaxing (and bribes) we got her ready to go.

The first thing I noticed when Sophia started the warm up part of class is that she has her daddy's flexibility. She doesn't bend. While the other little girls were virtually folded in half, Sophia was struggling to touch her knees let alone her toes. The next thing I noticed was that Sophia has her mommy's sense of direction. She will do the opposite leg, arm, or even go counter clockwise of the other girls. However, once the instructor got her all settled, she really has a natural grace and ability to do the dance moves. She learned the tap step, shuffle, right from the start. And it was clear heel/toe/slap. Even with the distractions (from one particular little girl who was intent on pulling Sophia away from everything and causing trouble--who is in one of the pictures but I won't be cruel to actually point her out, but let's just say one of the things is not like the other...eh hum, tambourines or...?), she actually learned some. I really went into the whole thing just hoping she had fun, if nothing else. I do want her to learn a little discipline, too. But I think that will come with time and maturity and certainly not from an introduction class with a bunch of three year olds.